A former employee at Facebook has lifted the cover of the social network’s mysterious ‘Little Red Book’ that it gives to staff.
Ben Barry, a former designer at Facebook, has published a series of scans from the company’s “little red book”, which he created during his time at the company.
The images provide a rare glimpse into the working standards and practices of one of the biggest companies on the planet.
The book is full of small soundbites about Facebook’s history and culture. It only began being placed on each new employee’s desk after the company hit 1 billion users in late 2012.
Barry, one of the first communication designers to join Facebook’s team in California, uploaded a few photographs from the manual on his website.
The selected pages show a collection of quotes and ideas that are both motivational and vaguely missionary-like in their zeal. From encouraging people to do some ‘pretty, cool stuff’ to telling them that greatness does not come with comfort.
Barry said that the book was aimed at explaining Facebook’s mission, history, and culture to new employees. “We wanted to try to package a lot of those stories and ideas in one place to give to all employees,” he wrote on his website.
But Barry has only uploaded a few pages and has written that the only way to see the entire text is to get a job at Facebook.
In a post on his site, Ben Barry’s office, the designer explains that the book came about because Facebook experienced challenges “explaining [the] company’s mission, history, and culture to new employees” and that “a lot of formative company discussions and debates had happened in Facebook Groups, over email, or in person. Those who had been present at the time had context, but for new employees that information was difficult to find, even if you knew what you were looking for.”
Picture source: Ben Barry